Arlington Court

Arlington Court from the northeast

Arlington Court is a mansion in Great Britain . The property, a Grade II * protected cultural monument, is located about eight kilometers east of Barnstaple in northern Devon .

history

By the end of the 18th century

The Arlington Estate was mentioned as early as 1086 in the Domesday Book . By marrying Thomasia Ralegh , the daughter and heir of John Ralegh it acquired in 1384 one of Somerset originating John Chichester . His descendants were able to acquire further possessions, so that Sir John Chichester (1474-1537) could divide his property among his five sons. Arlington fell to the youngest son Amyas Chichester (around 1512–1577). Amyas Chichester expanded the previous manor house after 1534, which was about 200 m southeast of the current manor house near the parish church of St James . Arlington remained in the possession of the descendants of Amyas Chichester. The family belonged to the Gentry of Devon and were able to maintain their prosperity through marriage and inheritance. But because she adhered to the Catholic faith, members of the family were excluded from public office since the Reformation . A fenced hunting park was probably built southeast of the manor house as early as the 16th century. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the manor house was surrounded by a formal garden and orchards.

The mansion of Colonel John Chichester, built around 1790 and demolished again around 1820. Painting by Maria Pixell from 1797.

New buildings at the end of the 18th century and in the 19th century

From around 1790, Colonel John Chichester replaced the old mansion with a new mansion in the same location. The design for the simple building in late Georgian style was provided by the architect John Meadows from London. Meadows died in 1791, so that the house was built without professional building supervision and had to be demolished again around 1820 due to serious construction defects. Instead, Chichester had a new mansion built about 200 m west of the church from around 1820. The house was designed by the Barnstaple architect Thomas Lee , who was a student of John Soane . After John Chichester's death in 1823, his son of the same name, John Chichester, had the house and the surrounding pleasure ground completed. The interiors were partly only after Chichester's marriage in 1839. Chichester also had the River Yeo dammed, creating a lake in the south of the park. The utility rooms for the manor house were in the basement. Not least because of the risk of fire, Bruce Chichester , who had inherited the property in 1851, had the manor house rebuilt and expanded considerably by adding a utility wing and an annex with a dining room. In 1864 he also had new stables built with a coachman's apartment. Chichester also expanded the surrounding park. After his untimely death in 1881, his only daughter, Miss Rosalie Chichester, inherited Arlington, which was burdened with considerable debts.

Transfer of the property to the National Trust

Miss Chichester left the facility essentially unchanged. Through economical housekeeping, she was able to pay off the burdens until 1928. She remained unmarried and in 1945 bequeathed Arlington Court and the entire, mostly leased property of 971 hectares to the National Trust , but lived in the mansion until her death in 1949. When the National Trust took over the property, the mansion was in dire need of renovation. Since there were still restrictions in the building industry after the Second World War , the National Trust had the dilapidated annex with the dining room torn down, and the wood-rot- infested ceiling in the former billiard room had to be removed. To do this, the National Trust recorded and ordered the extensive collection of pewter dishes, ship models, and seashells that Miss Chichester had created, and opened the manor and park as a museum. The National Trust also had the partly overgrown parkland restored. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the pleasure ground was restored. On February 25, 1965, the mansion was placed under monument protection as a Grade II * cultural monument. The former stables, protected as a Grade II cultural monument, served after 1966 as a parking space for the National Trust's carriage collection, from which the National Trust Carriage Museum emerged. In 2003, a modern museum building was built next to the stables for the collection, which had grown to over 40 carriages. Since 2011, the museum has also housed the gilded Speaker's State Coach , the oldest of the three great state carriages in Great Britain.

The new building for the National Trust Carriage Museum

investment

Mansion

The main building, built around 1820, is a rectangular villa in a strictly classical style . The facades of the two-storey building with a basement consist of smooth stone blocks and are surrounded on three sides by a terrace. The flat slate roof is surrounded by a low parapet . The façades are structured strictly symmetrically by the French windows that reach down to the ground floor. The main entrance in the middle of the east side is emphasized by a single-storey entrance porch. The basement receives daylight through barred windows below the terrace. The L-shaped farm wing, built before 1868, adjoins the north side of the manor house. This is a little lower than the main building, but almost dominates it by its length. Together with the main building it forms a horseshoe-shaped system, but the two-storey wing differs significantly from the main house by the visible slate roof and the rusticated window frames.

The east facade of the manor house with the main entrance

The splendid interior of the main rooms contrasts with the austere exterior of the house. A small vestibule leads to the spacious, splendidly furnished staircase, which was created through a renovation in 1865. Originally the stairwell only received daylight through a skylight , but the renovation also gave it large windows on the north side. In the stairwell, some of Miss Chichester's collections are displayed in cupboards and display cases, including numerous models of ships made by French prisoners of war during the Napoleonic Wars . The main representation rooms are on the ground floor on the south side, where a room over twenty meters long takes up the entire length of the building. This room is divided into three rooms by pairs of stucco marble columns, which can also be completely separated by folding partitions. These three rooms, the drawing room , the anteroom and the dining or reception room have stucco ceilings from the time it was built; the wallpapers in the anteroom and dining room are from the first furnishings around 1839 and show the influence of Joan Soane on his student Thomas Lee. In the three rooms more parts of the collections of Miss Chichester are on display, including the native of China-made of red amber statue of an elephant and a from Flanders originating Psalter from the 13th century. Other rooms on the ground floor are the boudoir with a vaulted ceiling and silk wallpaper from 1839, a museum room with other collections and Miss Chichester's dining room, which after 1949 served as an office to record the inventory. The family's private living rooms and bedrooms are upstairs. In one of these rooms, one of four French tapestries from the 18th century is shown alternately, depicting the four continents known at the time. The carpets were probably acquired by Colonel John Chichester around 1790 and later hung in the dining room, which was demolished after 1949. An unusual piece of equipment is a drawing made by William Blake in 1821 with a mythological scene. A cafeteria is located in the former, spacious kitchen in the utility wing. The basement rooms of the manor house, which originally housed the utility rooms, are not open to the public, as they are home to a large colony of lesser horseshoe bats. In the decorations in the house, but also in the farm buildings and in the garden, there are numerous depictions of herons , the heraldic animal of the Chichester family.

The main wing of the stables with the clock tower

stables

The former stables are located about 300 m east of the manor house. The originally two-winged complex was probably not completed. The east wing was built with a high clock tower in the middle. On the left of the east wing is the short south wing, to which the two-story coach house is attached. This contained storage space for carriages on the ground floor and the coachman's apartment on the upper floor. The modern museum building for the National Trust Carriage Museum is nicely located on the west side of the courtyard. The little brick timbered granary on the other side of the driveway originally came from Dunsland House near Holsworthy until it was relocated to Arlington after it was destroyed by fire in 1967.

Garden and park

Arlington Court lies on the western edge of the Exmoors above the River Yeo. The manor house is surrounded by an approximately 145 hectare garden and park in the English garden style . The terrain slopes steeply to the west towards the valley of the River Yeo. The winding driveway leads through a loosely wooded landscape and past the home farm built in the middle of the 19th century , the former farm. The garden and park have been protected as a Grade II * cultural monument since 1987.

Garden and pleasure ground

To the east, south and west, the manor is surrounded by a pleasure ground laid out at the beginning of the 19th century, which was expanded in the middle of the 19th century. The approximately 20 hectare pleasure ground consists of meadows loosely planted with trees and bushes, which are separated from the park landscape laid out at the beginning of the 19th century by a metal fence and in the south and west by a ha-ha . Due to the location on a hill above the River Yeo, the manor house offers views to the east, south and west. Deerpark Wood , a wooded area about a kilometer on the western side of the River Yeo, serves as an eye-catcher.

About 130 m northeast of the mansion is a formal garden surrounded by a low metal fence and hedges, which was probably created in the first half of the 19th century and later redesigned in the Victorian era . In the north, the garden borders the walled kitchen garden , which was laid out before 1844 . A greenhouse is attached to the wall, which was reconstructed in 1983 based on plans from the 19th century. To the southeast of the garden is the non-property Glebe House , the former rectorate, and the parish church of St James. About 200 meters southeast of the mansion is a nature pond, which in the 19th century as Wilderness Pond was built and restored in the 1970s.

The formal garden with the greenhouse

The landscape park

The over 120 hectare landscape park is mainly to the west and south of the house. It is limited by hedges and fences so that it merges into the surrounding landscape. From Wilderness Pond, a path leads through The Wilderness , a wooded valley with a small stream, to the River Yeo. The Wilderness was created in the 19th century and presumably replaced a late medieval fish pond and an earlier orchard. To the west and south of the manor house are pastures with trees and shrubs planted specifically, mainly beech and sycamore. The River Yeo, which flows through the western part of the park, was dammed into a lake in 1837. It was originally intended to be spanned by a suspension bridge designed by William Dredge , but this was not completed and the pillars have been preserved. To the northeast of the lake is a stone urn designed by Robert Adam in memory of Rosalie Chichester. Woolley Wood , an oak forest about a kilometer southwest of the house, was probably created as early as the 16th century. Several footpaths and bridle paths run through the entire park, some of which are still old carriage paths.

literature

• National Trust (Ed.): Arlington Court and the National Trust Carriage Museum . Swindon, National Trust 2009, ISBN 978-1-84359-352-2

Web links

Commons : Arlington Court  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Arlington Court and National Trust Carriage Museum websites

Individual evidence

1. ^ National Trust, Arlington Court , p. 2.
2. ^ National Trust, Arlington Court , p. 6.
3. ^ National Trust, Arlington Court , p. 7.
4. ↑ Historic England: Arlington Court. Retrieved May 27, 2019 . 
5. ^ National Trust, Arlington Court , p. 11.
6. ^ Bridget Cherry, Nikolaus Pevsner: Devon (The Buildings of England) . Penguin, London 1991, ISBN 0-14-071050-7 , p. 129.
7. ↑ Historic England: Arlington Court. Retrieved May 27, 2019 . 
8. ^ Bridget Cherry, Nikolaus Pevsner: Devon (The Buildings of England) . Penguin, London 1991, ISBN 0-14-071050-7 , p. 129.
9. ^ National Trust, Arlington Court , p. 26.
10. ^ National Trust, Arlington Court , p. 14.
11. ^ National Trust, Arlington Court , p. 15.
12. ^ National Trust, Arlington Court , p. 25.
13. ^ National Trust, Arlington Court , p. 46.
14. ↑ Historic England: STABLE BLOCK AND COACHMAN'S HOUSE TO ARLINGTON COURT. Retrieved May 27, 2019 . 
15. ^ Bridget Cherry, Nikolaus Pevsner: Devon (The Buildings of England) . Penguin, London 1991, ISBN 0-14-071050-7 , p. 129
16. ↑ Historic England: Arlington Court. Retrieved May 27, 2019 . 
17. ↑ National Trust, Arlington Court , pp. 30-31.
18. ^ National Trust, Arlington Court , p. 2.
19. ^ National Trust, Arlington Court , p. 29.
20. ^ National Trust, Arlington Court , p. 45.

Coordinates: 51 ° 8 ′ 49 ″  N , 3 ° 59 ′ 13 ″  W.